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This is an old study (2008) but I have only just come across it and found it fascinating. The study was a longitudinal social network analysis carried out on 4739 individuals between 1983 and 2003. What they found was that there were clusters of happy and unhappy people in the network. And these seem to feed off of one another. But more importantly that happiness seems to be infectious! To quote the abstract:
“…happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future. Longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25% (95% confidence interval 1% to 57%). Similar effects are seen in coresident spouses (8%, 0.2% to 16%), siblings who live within a mile (14%, 1% to 28%), and next-door neighbours (34%, 7% to 70%). Effects are not seen between coworkers. The effect decays with time and with geographical separation.
People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are…
